Michigan’s top election official, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, says former President Donald Trump called for her arrest and execution in the wake of his slim loss in Michigan in 2020.
Benson told NBC News that a source familiar with a White House meeting after the election told her Trump said in that meeting she should be arrested for treason and possibly killed.
“Even the president himself had called on me to be arrested and tried for treason, potentially executed,” Benson said in an interview that aired Thursday, May 19, on NBC Nightly News.
“It was surreal,” she said, “and I felt sad.”
Michigan was among a handful of swing states that took center stage as Joe Biden eked out close victories that Trump wanted overturned, claiming widespread fraud that has never been substantiated. A month after the election, a small crowd of armed protestors rallied outside Benson’s home in Detroit and shouted violent threats.
Related: Armed protesters rally outside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home
When asked by MLive for more information about how Benson learned of what Trump said, Benson spokesperson Tracy Wimmer said Benson “received a phone call sharing the comment” Trump made in the weeks following the election.
“I have it on good authority that Secretary Benson knowingly lied throughout her interview with NBC News,” Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich told the outlet for its story.
When MLive asked Budowich on Friday to expound on his comments, he wrote: “Jocelyn Benson made an absurd statement, sourcing it to a person she won’t disclose who she admits was not even at the made up meeting.”
In Michigan’s secretary of state election in November, Benson, a Democrat, will likely face Kristina Karamo, who is endorsed by Trump and the Michigan Republican Party. Karamo has said the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Benson should be investigated and jailed.
Related: Kristine Karamo lands GOP Secretary of State endorsement to face Jocelyn Benson in November
Karamo is one of 23 secretary of state candidates in 18 states who have doubted or denied the legitimacy of Biden’s victory, according to States United Action. Other than Michigan, they include key 2020 states Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.
A May poll by the University of Massachusetts found 30% of Americans believe Biden’s victory was “probably not” or “definitely not” legitimate, while 56% believe it probably or definitely was. That 3 in 10 voters includes nearly 68% of Republicans, the poll also found, compared to 30% of independents and 1% of Democrats.
“We should stop expecting that there is a bottom to the lengths that people will go to overturn legitimate election results and seize power in our country,” Benson, an election law scholar before being elected in 2018, told NBC News.
Michigan’s Secretary of State oversees elections statewide, which are carried out by county boards. The Secretary’s duties include advising and directing local election officials, investigating election law violations and policing candidate and petition registration.
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